CURSE OR BLESSING?

Wednesday of the 21st Week in Ordinary Time
Mt 23:27-32

We like to bless and be blest. We believe in blessings.

Some curse and are cursed. Others seem to be curses in themselves.

There are two types of people who seem to be curses in themselves. Both the First Reading and the Gospel today talk about them.

In the First Reading, they are those who refuse to work. St. Paul is dismayed as he writes, “Those who do not work should not eat.” Laziness is a curse. Lazy people are curses to other people. Admonish them to work, give them work, teach them how to work, and you dispel the curse.

In the Gospel, the accursed are the hypocrites. Jesus sheds off His meek-and-mild image and shouts, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites!” Hypocrites are like whitewash tombs, clean in the outside but full of dead man’s bones in the inside. Hypocrites are not only accursed; they are curses to other people, too. Unmask the hypocrite and you drive away the curse.

No one wants to live with a lazy fellow. No one wants to be identified with hypocrisy. Everybody likes blessings instead. Let us fight our own laziness and repent from our own hypocrisy. Let bless one another. Let us work hard. Let us be sincere always. Let us be blessings ourselves.

The choice is always ours. If we make a wrong choice, woe indeed we are.